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A celebration of integrating creative movement, visual arts, drama, poetry, music, and storytelling into everyday teaching practices since 2006. This is a place to both share and learn new approaches that engage and energize our students, our teaching practices and ourselves.

Why do we teach what we teach?

The New York Times piece "Is Algebra Necessary" is sure to elicit strong responses on all sides. For me it raises a larger question: why do we teach what we teach? Is it because it has value for our students or is it because it's always been done that way and is propagating an outmoded educational system that was developed in the 19th century to train factory workers or is it something else? Worth thinking about.

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Summary of Daniel Pink's "Story"
as one of the "Six Senses" as presented in A Whole New Mind
Pink describes story as “context
enriched by emotion.” Traditionally, it is through story that important,
meaningful information has been passed down through the generations.Factual information, so readily available to
us through electronic media, lacks the "emotional impact" of stories.
Emotion is the critical element that makes information relevant and memorable.
For Pink, storytelling is an art
modality that demands interpretation and relies on both creative and critical
thought processes. As human beings, we author our lives by assembling artifacts
of our past, and creating narratives that reveal our world and our true selves.
That is, we live our stories.Our
stories reflect our years – the difficult storms and the peaceful joys.
Therefore, sharing our stories adds more depth to life, gives more meaning to
our relationships, and provides more context in ou…